Monsieur Insoumis

This is the third in a series of Rouen characters I will be posting. His treatment is different to the previous two, partly because I have gone back to pencil (my first love) and partly because I'm still experimenting with using scanned textures for colour. Don't forget to click for a closer look.

There is an anarchist bookshop near where I live. It's not easy to glimpse inside because it's only occasionally open and then only at certain times of the day (ie. when the police are at lunch – this is France, remember). Even when it is open the owner seems determined to keep his clientèle limited to a trusted few; the look he gave me when I last peered inside wasn't welcoming. Was it my shoes? In any case, I'll have to go elsewhere for my subversive pamphlets.

The shop, in its usual shut-up state, has its windows covered by lift-down wooden shutters, painted in burnt-barricade black. Just in case anyone still doesn't think that political power is accursed, the following words of the great Louise Michel are stencilled there in white:

'Le pouvoir est maudit, c'est pour cela que je suis anarchiste!'

We inhabitants of Rouen recently received an official letter telling us to report to our local police station to be vetted. This was so we could declare our race, sexual orientation, political views, and to state which trades unions we belonged to. Obviously it was a stunt. I don't know how many actually turned up to do this, or who was to blame, but my guess is that Monsieur Insoumis knows something about it.